(a) whether people are being duped in the country through international mobile calls originating from foreign countries including Pakistan, Myanmar and West Asia;
(b) if so, the steps taken by the Government to create awareness among the people in this regard;
(c) the State-wise details of the number of cases of cheating with regard to bank accounts and insurance policies through such fake international calls; and
(d) the action taken by the Government thereon?
THE MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI RAVI SHANKAR PRASAD)
(a) Madam, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has received complaints from a few mobile consumers that they had received missed calls from certain telephone numbers and that on calling back these numbers, they were charged substantially. On verification of these complaints, the telephone numbers from where the missed calls had come were found to be international numbers. In many cases such numbers relate to premium rate services for which higher charges apply.
(b) TRAI had issued a Direction on missed calls (wangiri calls) originating from outside the country on 7th September 2012. This direction mandates the access service providers to ensure that no ISD connection is activated on prepaid SIM without the explicit consent of the consumers, inform all prepaid subscribers through SMS, within ten days, to give their consent for ISD facility within 60 days, discontinuation of ISD facility of those prepaid consumers who have not given consent and easy opt-in and opt-out facility to consumers for ISD facility. This direction also mandates all the access service providers to inform through SMS, within ten days of the date of the issue of this direction, all pre-paid cellular mobile telephone service consumers not to respond to missed calls from unknown international numbers with prefix other than “+91” or calls about winning prizes or lottery and send such SMS to the consumers every six months. The implementation of the direction is a matter subjudice.
(c) & (d) No such data related to number of cases of cheating with regard to bank accounts and insurance policies through such fake international calls is maintained. However, advisories have been issued from time to time to the users in this regard.